There are two breweries I want to visit. One, called Acclamation Brewing, is in a town called Verona, which is a bout eight miles North-East of my neighborhood in Pittsburgh. The other, Local Remedy, is in Oakmont (where the big Golf tournament is held), two miles North of Verona.
These breweries are both in my stamp book. So, by the rules of my game, I must take the bus or ride my bike to these breweries if I want to collect their stamps. There is a bus route that boards really close to my apartment and drops off just a few blocks away from Acclamation: the P78. From there I could probably walk to Local Remedy and then back to the bus stop.
I think it would be more fun to ride my bike here, though. Normally, I do the vast majority of my riding either a) in the denser part of Pittsburgh that has pretty decent bike infrastructure, or b) on the multi-use trails that run along the rivers and through the parks around town. This ride, however, takes place almost exclusively on suburban boulevards and state highways. These types of roads are perfectly legal to cycle on in Pennsylvania, but cyclists and pedestrians are undoubtedly at the very bottom of the hierarchy in these settings. Most of the mileage on the most direct candidate routes doesn’t even have sidewalks. This ride will take me considerably outside of my comfort zone. So, to make sure I don’t have an awful time, I’m going to do some planning and try riding smaller segments of the ride out. If it ends up feeling too sketchy, I’ll just take the bus.